


To Tame a Raven - Moments, vignettes, snapshots

by foxghost



Series: Slaves of Tevinter [2]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Digital Art, Friendship, Illustrations, Kid Fic, Other, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-11-07 08:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxghost/pseuds/foxghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back story stuff for To Tame a Raven that just won't fit into the story. Pretty much all OCs. (most chapters are drawings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. young Saul.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how many of these there will be. Most of these are outlined into my draft for To Tame a Raven, but sometimes I write the chapter and it just doesn't fit. Or if the hints are there but I just want to fit more detail in, but it just won't fit.


	2. Florian - prologue portrait




	3. Darinius and Saul Meets

(Warning: IMPLIED UNDERAGE NONCON.)

This all happened a long time ago.

It was before his magic manifested, before he was taken to be raised in the Circle. That was his father's decision; he was too busy with the senate and the war to teach basic spells and history. They had money enough for a private tutor, and later Darin would recognize that his father simply wanted his elf-blooded child out of the house.

They named him Darinius, after the first Archon of the Imperium. Such ambition, and such high hopes that his son would turn out to be a mage at all. Darin, he liked to be called. Darinius sounded like an old hermit living in a ruined tower in the woods.

He didn't even _like_ the outdoors.

When his father was out fighting on Seheron, he climbed the walls and waited there everyday, watching the crowd in the marketplace from afar. No one ever told him anything, not if his father was wounded, or if he died and wasn't coming back.

One day he would be important enough to know everything as soon as it happened. One day. Darin wriggled his fingers and waited. Nothing. No magic, not even a spark.

It was on one of his wall-top surveillance missions - that was what he liked to tell his tutors, to their amusement - that he sighted Saul for the first time. Darin remembered being very excited at the time; there were no other children in his villa, at least none anywhere near his age, and he was lonely.

"One of these days you're going to fall off that wall," said his father, calling from the foot of the gates.

"We have a healer!" Darin yelled back.

On the ground, when Darin finally made the trip back down the wall, the boy who trailed his father turned out to be the same height as him, though even thinner. Darin had a slight build. This boy was just scrawny from not eating enough.

"Who is this, father?"

"This is Saul. Him and his mother will be staying with us," his father said, urging the brown-skinned, solemn looking boy forward. "I thought you could use a playmate. He's yours."

For a seven year old living in the lap of luxury and no one to play with, this was the best gift his father could have gotten him. Darin dug in his pack, finding the pastry that the cook stuffed in there this morning, as well as a couple of dried figs and a bottle of lemon water.

He thought for a moment, then took the pack off entirely and slung it over the boy's neck, "you look hungry. Are you hungry? How old are you? I'm seven. Do you like marbles? There's marbles in that bag but I have more in my room. You can have the ones in the bag."

Saul took a bite of the pastry filled with fig jam and he smiled the brightest smile Darin had ever seen. It occurred to him suddenly that the boy grew up on an island full of Qunari and the one thing he read about the Qunari was that they did not have cookies.

Before his father could get a word in, Darin was already clasping both of the new slave boy's hands in his own and making a dash for the kitchens.

*

The two of them were inseparable since day one.

Saul was only five, but he led a very different life before they met. He recognized every edible weed in the garden, and the most unsettling thing of all was that he also knew about all the edible insects.

Darin didn't even know that insects could be edible.

"No," he said emphatically, staring at the proffered roasted spider leg in horror. "There is no way I am eating that."

"You eat lobster," Saul peeled the shell off the belly of the spider, and slurped the egg jelly down in one go, smacking his lips. Darin gagged visibly. "It's the same thing."

"It's not."

"It is. It's a big bug that lives in the water with a bunch of little legs."

"It's disgusting," Darin crossed his arms.

"You're chicken," Saul giggled.

Darin snatched the leg out of the fire at his taunt, rubbed the hair off with a leaf as he had seen Saul do, and snapped it in half. The meat was white and sectioned, and looked suspiciously like crab meat.

He took a bite.

"Okay. It tastes like lobster," he grudgingly admitted.

Saul only smiled, and handed him another one.

*

Saul was a clever child who soaked up knowledge like a sponge.

To Saul, learning to read and write was a precious gift, skills rarely bestowed on a slave. The only reason he was taught at all was because he was keeping the magister's son company. He learned his alphabet in a week, and was reading at the same level as Darin by the end of his first year.

Darin was bitterly jealous, but he couldn't be mad at Saul. Saul was so happy with everything that sometimes Darin just wanted to punch him.

"You should take your studies more seriously," said his father. "If your magic never manifests, you can take up a trade, but only if you can read and write."

Darin wanted to punch his father too, but the magister would probably stonefist him to the wall.

As the years went by, his playmate became less and less of a magical wild thing. They seemed the both of them doomed to the mundane, a couple of Imperial citizens in the making who would never sit in the senate.

Darin considered asking for a change of names. After all, a non-mage named Darinius was just embarassing.

*

In hindsight, playing marbles on the top of a high wall was a very stupid thing to do, but children, especially boys, were known for doing stupid things.

It was a five feet wide wall, uneven on top with lots of interesting rugged grooves with which to play marbles on. Neither blamed the other afterwards, as it was probably both boys' idea to roll marbles up there.

Everything happened in slow motion; Saul's hand reaching for the little glass ball as it rolled too fast down a groove, and then it connected with another marble, his attention diverted suddenly and he leaned towards it, throwing himself off balance.

Then his arms were flailing and he was trying to catch himself and falling.

Darin was not a brave boy, nor a courageous boy. He wasn't afraid of heights, but that was only because he knew that he would never fall, and if he did, there was always a healer around to fix his legs if he broke them.

Darin never broke anything, too squeamish of the idea of being wounded to do anything remotely risky, like hunting and roasting spiders.

Saul was falling down head first. There was no cure for a broken neck, not even in Tevinter.

And then he wasn't. It was as simple as that.

All about them was the typical sunny day of Minrathous, faint sea breeze and bright scorching sun beating down without pause. Save for the gust of whirlwind that held Saul aloft, everything was as normal as could be.

He willed his friend back on to the top of the wall. Darin stared down at his hands, fingers glowing a soft gold, the colour of force magic.

His friend hugged him tight, "thank you."

Then he added, belatedly, "congratulations."

*

The Circle of Magi in Minrathous was huge. Ginormous. Gargantuan. Just, um, huge. There were towers and steeples and so many different buildings it could have been a city on its own anywhere else in Thedas. Darin was impressed, even after having toured the hall of Magisters and the Colosseum.

But when it came down to it, the Circle was just more school work around the clock, with other children who were much less interesting than his Saul.

Darin sneaked out every chance he got, which was about twice a month.

"It's been lonely here without you," Saul said.

They sat eating leftover cold pastries in the kitchen. It was the least likely place for the magister to look, and after all these years he still hadn't learn of their hiding place.

Darin showed his friend the latest trick he learned: juggling four small spell wisps with force magic. It was completely useless, as far as magic went, but at eight years of age, Saul was easily impressed.

Invariably, Saul's mother came to remind him that he had work to do before bed. Darin would always remember her as a wonderful, loyal woman who never gave away their location.

There were bruises on the sides of her neck. Darin stared at them, and she blushed, looking away.

They were gone the next time he came by. Darin found Saul leaving the healer's quarters, late at night.

"Did you finally fall off the wall?" He jested.

Saul rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly evasive, "I'm fine."

Darin knew his friend well enough to know that he was avoiding the question, but he didn't press. If Saul wanted him to know, he wouldn't have lied - no, Saul did not lie. He sidestepped and changed subjects but he had been conditioned by canes and whips to never lie.

They walked by Saul's mother on the way to the kitchens, in the prep area kneading bread dough, and she did not turn to wave at them, not even when Darin called out a greeting. Her shoulders shook when her hands were off the flour board; Darin associated that movement with weeping, but she made no sound.

"What's wrong with your mom?" Darin asked as they settled theselves to lounge on bags of flour.

"Nothing," Saul shrugged, not looking at him. Then he quickly changed the subject, "I haven't seen you in weeks. Did you learn anything new?"

Darin showed him, and they sat there talking about nothing all night. In the background they could hear the sound of the dough turning and hitting the board, the _thud, thud, thud_ of a fist punching it down.

He ignored the faraway look on his friend's face. Bad things happened to slaves in Tevinter, Darin was aware of that. They were fed well and they had a roof over their heads; that made their lot better than most.

If he repeated it often enough, he could almost believe it.

*

The last time Darin saw Saul's mother alive, she was trying to convince him to leave.

"He's not here," she said, her eyes puffy and red. "Come back tomorrow."

It was difficult to find time now to sneak away, having mastered force magic and now bombarded with a series of tests to prepare him for a secondary school. After scaling two walls, he wasn't about to turn around and go back.

Darin nodded as if he agreed, then he went through every room in the slave quarters. It was a labyrinthine wooden building honeycombed with tiny rooms, but Saul wasn't there.

Then he looked through the kitchens, but he wasn't there either. Maybe she was telling the truth. Darin decided he would go back to his old room to wait.

It had been two years since he came home officially, and the small wing in the villa dedicated to his use had been closed off. Without another heir to raise, there was no point in having a nursery and a schooling room and toys.

His father was home; the sconces were lit. Darin had no desire to see his father. Two years, and he had made not a single visit, only the occasional letter passed between them, even though the Circle was only a half hour's walk away. The magister expected him to take his studies seriously, and family was a distraction.

A low groan pierced the night's silence, and Darin nearly laughed out loud. _Well, father can apparently afford distractions since he already has a seat in the senate._ He turned to go. For an eleven year old, overhearing a parent having sex fell squarely into the category of disgusting.

He could always wait in the garden, near the gates. Plenty of hiding places in their grounds that one small boy wouldn't be seen.

A high pitched scream came from the same direction, and Darin froze. Muffled crying followed the scream, and then the familiar voice of his father making unfamiliar sounds.

Darin had heard about this, from some of the other apprentices who used to be slaves before their magic manifested. Some worked in the lower floors of bath houses in private rooms, where anyone with enough coin could use them. There was nothing illegal about it, and therefore morally allowed, and the laws on how a slave could be treated had been the same for thousands of years.

A slave had no rights at all, and if a magister used them for their amusement, a slave should feel _honoured._

But this was his friend, and he was screaming and crying and begging, and Darin realized that there was no honour in this. There was also nothing he could do, no one he could tell. His father made the laws, his father worked for years to be in this position where he was the same as a god to his slaves. He could do this to Darin's friend without any consequence.

And Saul was brought up to feel honoured by his treatment. He should feel grateful for knowing how to read and write, that his mother was fed and clothed, that they were not being sacrificed in a blood ritual.

Darin ran for the doors, his sandals slapping hard against the tiles but there was so much noise here already that they probably didn't hear him. He made it out of the master's villa and into the back garden, falling to his knees and his hands and promptly lost his dinner in the dirt.

He threw up until there was nothing but bile in his throat, an acidic burning that hurt and explained the tears in his eyes. How long he had been there, Darin was not certain, but eventually he sat back on his heels, having cried his eyes dry.

When Saul wrapped his thin arms around him, he did not move, nor did he turn around. There was so much anger in him he thought he would lash out at anything, even his friend, and that was the last thing Saul needed.

"Don't look at me," Saul mumbled into his back, kneeling behind him. Darin felt a slight trembling in his limbs, knees that barely supported him stopping him from tumbling into the dirt. "Don't turn around. Please."

"I won't," Darin promised. An uncomfortable pause urged him to find something to say, "we should take you to the healer."

"I'll see him in the morning," Saul said, voice strangely devoid of emotion. "He's asleep by now."

"It's all right if you cry. I did. And I'm not even hurt," Darin clutched at Saul's hand laid over his chest. He added, "and I'm older."

"I'm fine," Saul said. "Don't worry about me."

Oh, that was a while ago, when Darin found him in the healer's quarters and Saul insisted that he was _fine._ Had this been going on for a year and Saul kept it all to himself?

"Why didn't you tell me? We're friends, aren't we?"

"I'm sorry," then he did cry, his shoulders shaking behind Darin, twin spots of moisture flaring out on the back of his apprentice robes. And he kept repeating, "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Darin was crying too, even though there was nothing left in him to weep. "Don't you dare think this is your fault."

"But it is. I brought it on myself," Saul said. "The magister was hurting mother and I walked in and told him to stop and I said he can hurt me instead -"

"Saul," Darin broke his promise and turned around, pulling the smaller boy into his arms. "Oh, Saul."

*

Darin couldn't find the courage to go back, after that night.

It was selfish. He knew his friend needed him more than ever. But Darin was working towards becoming a Tevinter Magister, one day to own slaves and lord over them like his father, to fight in wars like his father, and he was raised with the same laws his father penned.

The magister kept writing him letters, and Darin ignored every last one. They never had a close relationship before, and now he did not even want to look at his handwriting.

The same hand that wrote this letter tormented his best friend. Darin tossed it into the air and set it on fire, and the sight of it turning into swirling ashes filled him with strange satisfaction.

He did not visit again until he heard that Saul's mother had passed away.

"She killed herself," Saul pursed his lips before his face relaxed into accustomed neutrality. "She probably thought that the magister would have nothing to hold over my head if she's dead."

They were both silent, each of them mulling over how foolish that was. It was probably the guilt that killed her, but saving her son was as good an excuse as any.

Saul had grown tall, gangly, and beautiful in an exotic, head-turning way. Darin himself had grown tall as well, but in comparison he most resembled a very pale scarecrow with his black hair and white skin, from years of magical research indoors.

"How are you?" It was an empty question and he expected the answer, but Darin still wanted to ask.

"I'm fine," and his faint smile had become convincingly real.

*

Darin threw himself into his studies for years, rushing towards his harrowing. He entertained fantasies of besting his father in a duel, winning the entire household, and giving Saul his freedom.

They were foolish ideas; his father was a seasoned battlemage who actively fought in the war, and Darin was barely passing his classes even with his head in the books all day. He wished Saul was the one who showed magic instead. His friend was always the smarter one of the two of them.

But that was perhaps asking the Maker for far too much.

Two days before he had his harrowing, The Magister died in a duel with a rival magister and his entire household was the prize. Darin was lucky that he was given to the Circle, and perhaps that was the Magister's plan, that his heir would not be given away if he was challenged and bested.

But he couldn't go back to see Saul anymore, not unless he wanted to risk becoming a slave himself. He tried his best to keep track of his friend, but the glimpses he caught made him feel inadequate and helpless.

Saul had become a prized pleasure slave of the magister who now owned him, routinely lending him out at parties. Knowing that his own temper almost always got ahead of him, Darin avoided those parties. From what he heard, Saul had all but resigned himself to his fate, obediently following his master everywhere like a hound. Darin was afraid of seeing him, afraid of finding out with his own eyes that the stories were true.

It was another hurdle to work towards. He had to become more powerful, win a higher rank, make friends with more influence. Darin knew he had power in him; he was his father's son. A fact that he kept trying to forget, but it was bred in his views, his mannerisms, even his magical talent.

He could not escape this life, so he embraced it. Outside of Tevinter he was an apostate. Inside Tevinter, he had to play the game. The oppressor or the oppressed, never in between. That was a mage's lot.

It was years before he saw Saul again, at a magister's party, the two of them barely recognizing each other.

Saul was positioned in a round sling, moaning as a man paddled him soundly. Darin just stared. When the magister who owned Saul came up to him, asking him if he wanted a turn, Darin challenged him to a duel.

And he won.

It wasn't an easy victory, but he won. The pride demon had been whispering for years now, trying to find a way in, telling him that he could have been so much more, but Darin had staunchly told him no. But it was now more than his life on the line, more than his newly acquired household of slaves and his position.

It was about Saul, sitting on his heels, naked, always at the ready, waiting for his master. His eyes were like gray marbles, his feelings long detached. That glittery smile, the boy who giggled; they were long gone.

As Darin lain dying and bleeding on the ground, something flashed back into those grey eyes, fear, pain, anger - and Darin hoped that his friend was still in there, that he could still be saved.

It was the first time he used blood magic, and even over twenty years later Darin would still say it was worth it.

He won, and everything that belonged to his father, everything that this magister had won and gathered in his lifetime was his.

He walked up to Saul and kicked him in the ribs.

Darin called him useless, that he had no skills, that he had no need of him. He took the coin purse from the magister he killed, threw it at Saul's feet, and told him he was free.

There was enough money in there for him to take ship and sail out of Tevinter.

*

Saul stayed. He took a job as a scribe for a slaver, which surprised Darin. He won the trust of many and over the years became as rich as Darin himself. That did not surprise him at all.

He was happy, so happy, that he had a real friend again, one he did not have to lie to or bow to, a friend he could speak with honestly.

At first, Darin hoped that it was for him that he stayed. But it had been years since they had been friends, and that conclusion seemed unlikely.

Darin struggled with himself, with the whispers that insidiously invaded his mind, the second part of him that saved him once, saved them both. He was grateful certainly, but he had seen pride abominations and he did not fancy becoming one.

So he did the same thing other mages did to keep their demons in check; he fed it regularly with duels and sacrifices, allowing it to see through his eyes once in a while, drinking up the blood of his rivals through his magic.

It did not matter why Saul was still here, decades later. They were both still alive, and their weekly chats made him feel himself again, a boy again, who could gossip and lament and whine without anyone judging him.

Some things, they tried their best to forget ever happened. Others, like eating spiders and grubs roasted over a camp fire, they reminisced regularly. Still, when Saul offered to catch him another and have the cook prepare it, Darin made a face.

"You can't always go home," Darin shrugged.

"No," Saul chuckled, leaving an enigmatic smile. "No, you can't."

Sometimes those memories felt like all he had left. He was nearly forty and alone, the political arena being a terrible dating pool. Too many social climbers; not conducive to true love.

He never knew love until one of those mornings where he visited Saul for their weekly chats, where his friend decided they could use some music. A lute player, to be exact. The moment he saw Florian, his fine fingers strumming down open strings as he tuned, Darin was lost.

It was the beginning of the end, for love was one of those emotions that a person truly had no control over. And to a mage, control was everything.


	4. Anders -portrait chapter 26




	5. Darinius (portrait)




	6. Darinius (portrait) - in profile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2nd try.


End file.
